Chapter 349 --349
"You trained under a licensed physician?" Elara asked.
"Seven years," she said. "In the capital. Under Dr. Mehren, if the name means anything."
It did. Mehren’s practice had a reputation she had encountered in the medical administration reports — one of the better private practitioners in the capital, known for training assistants with unusually high competency relative to their formal certification. "It means something," she said. "Your name?"
"Sana."
"Sana." She filed it. "The man inside — your work?"
"Yes."
"Good work."
Sana received this without visible reaction, which Elara found she appreciated.
She turned back to the elder woman. "What is your name?"
"Dari," the woman said.
"Dari." She looked at the village again — the whole picture, the damaged granary, the stripped fields, the forty-three people who had been sixty-one. "I am going to deal with the garrison situation. What happens after that is going to require decisions from you and your people about what you want this village to look like going forward, and I am going to need accurate information from you to make anything work properly." She looked at the woman directly. "Can you give me accurate information?"
Dari looked at her steadily. "Yes, Your Majesty."